Le Mans, France

With MotoGP now one third through its 18 race season, the effect of the engine-life regulations - restricting each MotoGP rider to just 6 engines throughout the entire season - is starting to become clear. The latest engine information list - assembled by IRTA and MotoGP Technical Director Mike Webb, and distributed (if you can call it that) by Dorna - provides an interesting perspective on the impact the regulations are having, and how the factories have approached the problems posed by limited engines.

The clear winner that emerges from the list is surely Honda. Of their six riders, three (Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso, and San Carlo Gresini's Marco Simoncelli) have used just two engines, and not had to have a third engine officially sealed. Dovizioso and Simoncelli have distributed their races equally, with three races on each of the two engines, while Dani Pedrosa has four races on his number 1 engine, and just two on his number 2 engine.

Once again, David Williams of the On The Throttle crew caught up with Monster Tech 3 Yamaha rider Ben Spies after the latest MotoGP round at Mugello in Italy. Spies talks to Williams about the Le Mans and Mugello races, about learning new tracks, about the difference between the older and the newer tracks, and about what goes into setting up a MotoGP bike for a race. As ever, an interesting interview and 30 minutes of a MotoGP fan's time extremely well spent.

Here's the video from OnTheThrottle.tv:

The Le Mans MotoGP race turned into a bit of a mystery for a couple of riders. Casey Stoner lost the front for no apparent reason, and Dani Pedrosa, who had looked strong all race, lost two places on the last lap of the race. Afterwards, Pedrosa spoke to the press, explaining that his problems at the end of the race had been caused by a rear brake which had failed. The Repsol Honda rider also expressed his frustration at the continuing problems with the RC212V. Here's what Pedrosa had to say.

Q: What happened at the end? Was your front tire gone?

Dani Pedrosa: No, I couldn't stop the bike. I was all the time off line and I was making mistakes.

Q: Because you were riding defensively?

DP: Not really, I wasn't closing with two laps to go, but my rear brake was finished, and I don't know. I didn't know I had no rear brake, I could push and it felt OK, I just felt I was not stopping for the last 10 laps or so. But I had Dovizioso behind, so I couldn't say "I'll brake a little bit earlier and make no mistakes," because he would get past easily. So I still had to brake very hard, but you could see that in the middle of the corner I was off line. So finally in the last lap, I lost two positions, just because of mistakes. It's disappointing.

After crashing out at the Le Mans Grand Prix this weekend, a visibly upset Casey Stoner spoke to the press, to give his side of events. The Marlboro Ducati rider was upset, but most of all, he was mystified why he had crashed. There was nothing in the data to explain it, and he did not believe he had done anything wrong. He spent nearly 15 minutes talking to a throng of reporters in a crowded Ducati hospitality unit. Below is a nearly complete transcript of that conference, with only some sections where Stoner repeated himself removed.

Q: Front end Casey?

Casey Stoner: Yeah, I lost the front end for about 15 to 20 meters before it actually went down. I'd pretty much ground through my elbow protection there trying to keep it up, but it was a lost cause. After a while the rear end just followed it round and it was game over.

You know I'd pushed that bike around really hard all weekend, because we didn't want the same problems that we'd had at Jerez and Qatar. I pushed it as hard as I possibly could, and it never faltered, it never wobbled, it never did anything. The rear had a couple of moments which we were trying to improve all weekend, but nothing with the front.